TIL Desk/Business/New Delhi/ India would need to grow at 9 per cent to achieve the target of USD 5 trillion economy by 2024, which currently looks “unimaginably ambitious”, eminent economist R Nagaraj said on Sunday. Soon after assuming office for the second term in May 2019, the Narendra Modi-led government set a target of taking the economy to USD 5 trillion over the next five years.
But there have been several clouds over the economy since then, leading many to question the maintainability of the target. India’s GDP is currently estimated at around USD 2.8 trillion. “The target appears exceptionally daunting, if not impossible, going by the record of the current decade. Last July, as per my estimate, India needed to grow on average at 9 per cent per year in real terms from the fiscal year 2020 to 2024 to achieve the target of 5 trillion dollar economy.
“With the growth rate slumping, the goal looks unimaginably ambitious,” Nagaraj, a professor of economics at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), told. India’s GDP growth is seen dipping to an 11-year low of 5 per cent in the current fiscal, mainly due to poor showing by manufacturing and construction sectors, as per government data.
